Visitors wait in a line in front of a model of China's second space laboratory, the Tiangong II, at the China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, on Sept 17, 2016. [Photo/IC] |
Tiangong II, the nation's first spacecraft with a modular design, was lifted off atop a Long March 2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China's Gobi Desert on Sept 15.
The lab will undergo preparations in space for about a month before the Shenzhou XI manned spacecraft, in a flight scheduled for mid-October, will take two astronauts to the lab. The astronauts will stay inside the lab for 30 days.